We Were Best Friends
by stephanolikesthings
Summary: Courfeyrac keeps talking about this wonderful girl who he's friends with. And when she comes to a meeting one day, Eponine's not pleased to see who it is.


Eponine's sitting in the back, half leaning on Grantaire, when Courfeyrac comes in. He's talking loudly to Combeferre, and she doesn't have to put in much effort to hear what they're saying.

"She's perfect, 'Ferre. Like, she's hilarious, well-educated, _she laughs at my jokes_, and she's super sweet. Imagine Joly times three. That's her," he says to him, placing his stuff down on a table.

Eponine glances at R and smirks a bit.

"_She laughs at my jokes, _I don't think you understand. No one laughs at my jokes!"

"That's because your jokes are fucking awful," Eponine shouts to him with a grin.

Courfeyrac pouts while Grantaire bursts out laughing. He starts to make an argument when Combeferre places an arm on his shoulder.

"There's no way you can defend yourself. They're absolutely right," he says before walking towards Enjolras.

"Wow. Et tu, Brute?" Courfeyrac sighs, shaking his head. He walks over to the pair before sitting down next to them. "No, but you guys have to realize, she's the sweetest person ever. And I'm pretty sure she's the daughter of that new professor."

"Valjean has a kid?" Eponine questions, sitting up straight.

"Yeah, I think so. They don't look very much alike, but she only started this past week and she said something about how her father works at the school, so I guess it's him," Courfeyrac says. "I'm thinking about bringing her to one of the meetings. She sounded interested when I told her about it."

Eponine rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess it'd be nice to have another girl in the group. 'Chetta and I need more to control all you assholes."

"I resent that statement!"

"I don't," Grantaire says. "I mean, we are assholes."

"I know, I'm not denying it, I'm just resenting it."

Eponine rolls her eyes as Courfeyrac crosses his arms. She casts a glance towards the other group before standing. "C'mon, I think it's starting, and we can't be laughing when there's a world to save," she says sarcastically before joining the others.

* * *

"C'mon, Cosette, you have to come! I already told everyone you'd be there," Courfeyrac whines as the professor ends her lecture.

"I don't know. Are you sure they'll be okay with me being there?" Cosette wasn't normally nervous, but Courfeyrac was amazing and she wanted to make a good impression on everyone.

"They'll _love _you. Joly's already insisted on bringing you cookies when you show up. And I'm pretty sure Jehan might fall in love with you. Eponine told me she needed another girl to join because it's only her and 'Chetta right now," he tells her as they leave.

Cosette frowns. "Eponine… Where have I heard that name before?" she mutters to herself. Louder, she says, "Well, alright. When's the next meeting?"

She laughs as Courfeyrac lights up, and his excitement is nearly tangible. "Actually, we're having a little thing tonight. We're all just hanging out, but Enjolras will _definitely_ talk about Important Things with you. It's how he makes friends," he whispers dramatically to her, earning a laugh.

"What time should I be there?"

"I'll text you the details. Everyone is going to adore you. I'll make sure everyone's there."

Cosette frowned. "Don't go through too much trouble. It's only me."

Courfeyrac gasped. "Yes it's 'only' you. And you're perfect. It's fine! I'll just cancel everyone else's plans and then it'll work out," he grinned, before glancing down at his watch. "Shit, I gotta go. I have a class in about 7 minutes. Bye, Cosette! I'll text you the details later!"

She laughed as he kissed her cheek before running off to class.

"That boy is something else," she says fondly, before heading back to her dorm.

* * *

From: Courfeyrac  
CANCEL ALL YOUR PLANS.  
I'M BRINGING HER TO THE  
MUSAIN TODAY AND IF  
YOU'RE NOT THERE I'LL…  
WELL, I'LL BE VERY MAD.  
ok thanks!

Eponine smiled, shaking her head before showing her phone to Musichetta. "Did you get the same text?"

"From Courf? Yeah. He must really like this girl. Damn and I thought he had a crush on… Never mind," she sighs, ripping off another piece of her brownie.

"Crush on 'Ferre, right?" Eponine whispers, glancing at the aforementioned across the room.

Musichetta nods. "Huh. Well, let's hope this girl can help us take care of all of these children."

"Seriously," she pauses. "We should get paid for this."

They both laugh, and Eponine stands. "I will be right back," she grins, stealing a piece of Musichetta's brownie before heading towards the bathroom.

"Bitch!" 'Chetta laughs as the door opens.

"Who's a bitch?" Courfeyrac questions, glancing around the room.

"None of your business," she shoots back with a grin. "Where's this _chica _we've been hearing so much about?"

"She's coming in a minute. Everyone's here right? Where's 'Ponine?" he questions.

"Bathroom."

"Right," he nods, before stepping out. She laughs when she hears him yell. "C'MON 'SETTE, EVERYONE'S HERE! YOU CAN COME IN!"

"Courfeyrac, must you yell?" Enjolras questions, as his friend walks back in.

"Well, I wasn't gonna go get her," he shoots back, wincing as he gets slapped in the back of the head by Musichetta.

"That was rude and you _should've _gone to get her. Don't let the poor girl walk in alone, _estúpido_!"

Cosette walks into the café to a lot of shouting and what sounds like whining. She shakes her head when she sees Courfeyrac. _Well, that explains the whining,_ she thinks to herself.

"Everything okay here?" she questions with a raised eyebrow.

"Everything's wonderful, Courfeyrac's just rude," a tall, Hispanic woman says. "I'm Musichetta. And you must be this wonderful lady who Courfeyrac who has forgotten to tell us your name."

Cosette laughs, shaking Musichetta's hand. "I'm Cosette," she smiles, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

Musichetta grins before linking arms with her. "Well, Cosette, let's go meet everyone else!"

"Okay, so the muscled one in the corner over there is Bahorel. He boxes and owns a tiny puppy called Butch. The red headed guy next to him is Feuilly, and he's taking like 8 classes and works 3 jobs. There are my boyfriends, Joly and Bossuet. Joly's the tiny one and Bossuet's the bald one. They're both huge nerds, don't let them try to convince you otherwise."

Cosette laughs at that as she gets dragged towards the center of the room now. "This is Jehan, and he's a total sweetheart."

"You must be Cosette! Courf's told us a lot about you. Answer me this: do you prefer coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?"

"Oh, hot chocolate all the way. I live off of the stuff in winter time," she grins.

"Excellent choice. You'll fit in well here," he smiles, before picking up his book again.

"Grantaire's the one sketching over there and if you're lucky he'll probably draw you sooner or later. Marius is the one who looks like a puppy by Grantaire. Combeferre's the hot librarian, and this is the maker of this group, Enjolras."

Enjolras glanced up at her. "What do you think of the blatant socioecon—"

"That's enough from him. You'll be able to talk politics later. Let's go talk to Grantaire, he's cool," Musichetta tells her as she's dragged off. "R! Talk to Cosette while I go see if Courf ate the rest of my brownie."

Cosette smiles nervously at Grantaire before he grins. "Want a drink?"

She sighs gratefully, sitting down next to him. "Please."

Eponine walks back over and nudges Courfeyrac in the arm. "Where is this mystery girl we've heard so much about?"

"She's been here for like 5 minutes. What did you do in there?" he questions.

"A sacrifice," she deadpans. "You gonna introduce me or what?"

"I guess so. C'mon then, she's talking to R."

Eponine follows him before stopping dead in her tracks as she sees the girl.

"Cosette? Cosette Fauchlevent?"

The girl breaks out into a grin when she sees Eponine. "Oh my god! Eponine! It's been forever!" she says, standing up and walking over to her. Eponine takes a step back.

Courfeyrac glances between them. "You two knew each other?"

"Yeah, we were best friends when we were younger. Up until eighth grade," Cosette grins.

"Yeah. Emphasis on the _were_. I'm leaving," Eponine states, grabbing her keys before almost running out the door.

There's a beat of silence in the room.

"Well, uh, that was frankly quite awkward and I think we all need another drink," Grantaire states before walking towards the bar.

"You can say that again," Cosette mutters, falling back into the couch.

* * *

"What the fuck was all that about?" Grantaire questions as he walks into Eponine's apartment the next day.

"Do we really have to do this? I'd really rather not."

"Lucky for you, you don't have a choice in the matter. Now, come, spill to your dear friend, R," he says, lying down on her couch.

"Well, you got most of the picture last night. We were best friends when we were kids and then she fucking left without saying anything and I hadn't seen her since the middle of eighth grade. But now she's back and has fucking stolen the hearts of everyone," she says, rolling her eyes and sitting down next to him.

"She probably has a good reason, you know."

"She left without saying goodbye. There's no good reason for that."

Grantaire frowns. "Alright, that was kind of shitty, but she's sweet. And normally I'm not one for sweet, but she's cool."

Eponine rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, she's fucking amazing and brilliant and she's going to become everyone's best friend," she says bitterly, curling up on herself.

"C'mon, 'Ponine, there's got to be more to this. What aren't you saying?"

She sighs. "Nothing. Can we just get drunk and play Mario Kart?"

Grantaire shrugs. "Whatever you want. Doesn't matter to me."

Eponine gives a small smile. "You're the best, asshole."

"I know."

* * *

She successfully avoids Cosette for nearly two weeks. It was difficult because she fucking went to every meeting. Luckily, her boss needed extra help so she'd been earning overtime and avoiding her. Unfortunately, it couldn't last forever.

Musichetta confronts her as soon as she walks in on Thursday. "_Puta, dónde has estado?_ _¿Por qué has estado evitando todo el mundo__?"_

"You're speaking Spanish again, 'Chetta," she replies, rolling her eyes.

"Where the fuck have you been? You've been avoiding everyone and it's got me worried!"

"I'm _fine._ I've been working overtime, is all. And I don't know what you mean by avoiding everyone. I haven't been avoiding anyone."

She looks away when Musichetta gives her the 'I-know-you're-lying' look.

"I _haven't_! Like I said, I've been working overtime."

"If you say so. Hold on, I want you to try something," she says, hopping behind the counter and heading to the kitchen.

Eponine puts down her stuff and sits down, running a hand through her hair.

"Here. Try this and tell me it isn't amazing," 'Chetta says, holding out something small.

Eponine pops it in her mouth and nearly moans in delight. "Oh my god, when did you learn to make cream puffs?"

"Cosette taught me. Aren't they amazing? She got this recipe—well, speak of the devil and he will appear," she says, grinning at someone behind Eponine.

She turns around and curses under her breath when she sees Cosette.

Cosette grins. "Talking about me again, 'Chetta?"

"Just telling 'Ponine about your cream puffs. She loves them," she grins.

"Yeah, they're… they're great."

Cosette smiles softly and sits down next to her. "Hey, do you think, maybe, we could… talk sometime? I'd like to catch up," she questions hopefully as Musichetta helps a customer.

Eponine snorts. "Yeah, sure, why not. Come by my place whenever. Now, if you don't mind, I have to go pick up my brother."

Cosette frowns, but Eponine really doesn't care that much, so she leaves with the intention of seeing if her boss needs any more help.

* * *

"Fuck, R, why'd I do that? I really don't want her here and now she's coming over. Fuck fuck fuck, what's wrong with me?"

"_Calm down. I doubt anything's gonna go wrong. She's not gonna do anything. And you could always just call her and tell her you changed your mind."_

"But then I'd be the asshole."

"_What, like you aren't one already?" _Eponine can hear his laughter through the phone.

"Shut up. Well, I guess I'll call you if I need to get spectacularly drunk after this."

"_You won't need to. Now I gotta go. Bossuet and Joly wanna talk to me about something."_

"Good luck with that. Bye, asshole."

"_Bye, have fun!"_

Eponine snorts. "Yeah, I'm sure I will," she mumbles to herself and goes to make herself mac and cheese before Cosette comes.

* * *

Cosette adjusts her shirt for the seventh time since she'd left her dorm. She knew Eponine was avoiding her, and she didn't know why, but she wanted to fix it. Her papa always told her you couldn't just let something wither. She sighs before hesitantly knocking on Eponine's door. _Now or never, right?_

"It's open!" she hears Eponine shout and she sighs again before opening the door.

The apartment was nice; a lot nicer than Eponine's house when they were kids. Although, she supposes, a lot of things can change in five years. Had it only been five years?

She shakes her head and glances around before finally looking at Eponine. She seems defensive, and Cosette wished she knew what she did wrong.

She clears her throat. "Um, hi. H-how are you?"

Eponine raises an eyebrow. "Fine. And you?"

"I'm good," she nods awkwardly, before sighing again. "Look, I know you're mad at me and I want to know what I did so I can fix it. I feel awful knowing that you dislike me or something because I really wanna be friends with you again."

Eponine snorts and stands up. "You know what you did. And I honestly don't know if I can just 'move on' and let it go."

"Well can you remind me what it was? Because I'm lost here, Nina, and I don—"

"No, you don't have the right to use that nickname anymore!"

"We were best friends, Nin—Eponine, and I want to go back to that!"

"You _left_, Cosette! You left and I had no clue what happened to you."

"I had to go! I didn't have a cho—"

"No, fuck you! You could've said goodbye! You always have a choice. And you _chose _to leave without warning. You left, and you didn't even tell your _best friend_ goodbye," Eponine yelled, crossing her arms. Her eyes were wet, but she didn't want to cry. She _couldn't _cry. Not in front of her.

"You don't get it. My mom lost her job and she packed up and made us leave! I _begged_ her to turn around so I could say goodbye to you! She wouldn't even let me write you! I wanted to say goodbye to you so badly! But I couldn't. I couldn't because my mom wasn't listening to me and when we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere, she wouldn't hear of my bringing up anyone from home. But, God, I missed you. You think I didn't? You were my best friend. And it hurt so much to leave you." _But it wasn't just because you were my best friend._

Eponine was quiet for a moment. "It hurt so much. I got to school the next day, and you weren't there. I got home and tried going to your house but it was empty. I had to find out you left from a _teacher._ I thought you were gone forever. We were gonna go to high school together! We promised each other that! And when you left… I had nobody. You know what my parents were like. I couldn't… It hurt so badly."

Cosette wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you and tell you what happened. But it all got so crazy because my mom got a job in this new town but then she got sick. So very, very sick and I didn't know what I was supposed to do! She died and then, um, then I got adopted. And everything was moving by so fast that you weren't at the top of my mind all the time. But I never forgot about you. I can promise you that."

They were both quiet after that. Eponine sighed and looked up at Cosette. "You… you want a drink? I really need one after that," she said quietly.

Cosette laughed softly and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be nice. Um, I brought some of our old stuff and I figured… maybe we could…"

"Yeah. Yeah, we can do that," Eponine said, padding into her kitchen to get some wine.

Cosette sat down on the couch and dug a few things out of her purse. There was the scrapbooks her mom made of them, the friendship bracelet they made in sixth grade, and the collection of notes they passed to each other in elementary school. She was smiling softly when Eponine handed her a glass.

"Oh, thanks," she said, sipping at it. "Um, what do you wanna start with?" she questioned, showing Eponine everything she brought.

Eponine grinned when she saw the notes. "You kept these?"

"Well, I couldn't very well let the teacher know we were passing notes!" she laughed, reading over some of them. "Oh god, my handwriting was atrocious."

"Not as bad as mine! I can barely read mine."

They laughed and shared stories and reconnected with one another. The next thing they knew it was nearly 2 AM.

"You don't mind if I stay do you? The dorms are so far…" Cosette said, finishing off her 7th glass. "And, to be fair, I really don't think I should be driving anywhere."

"I couldn't care less. I've got some spare stuff in the bathroom if you need it," Eponine replied, glancing down at another page in the scrapbook. "Oh my god, do you remember Alex?"

"Alex White?" Cosette yelled from the hallway.

"Yeah! Didn't we both have major crushes on him?"

"You know what, I think we did. What was that, sixth grade?"

"Yeah. God, he was cute."

Eponine can hear Cosette's laughter from the bathroom, and she smiles to herself. She goes and puts on her pajamas and goes to put in a movie.

"You still like _The Breakfast Club_ right?" she questions as Cosette reappears.

"Duh. It's one of the best movies ever."

"Great," Eponine grins, settling back down on the couch and wrapping a blanket around herself. She looks up at Cosette. "C'mon then, sit down and then we can watch it."

Halfway through the movie, they're lying on each other and they're both ready to fall asleep. Drowsily, Eponine whispers, "You know, Cosette, I believe I was a little bit in love with you," before falling asleep.

Cosette's eyes widen and she smiles. "I believe I was in love with you too, Nina," she says, kissing her head.

And everything was silent, except for the flicker of the TV and the two girls' quiet breathing.


End file.
